Reduced Costs And Faster Fulfillment

Replacing Assembly Instructions With A Knowledge Base

As an electric bike startup in London, Analog Motion had crushed their Kickstarter goals. National television debuts and cascading press brought in huge numbers of pre-orders. After the campaign ended, and fulfillment became the priority, Analog Motion faced the ominous challenge of assembly. Assembly meant weeks of labor, more liability, and higher shipping costs. To solve this problem, the founders decided to leverage digital instructions using Zippa.

Concerning Liabilities

During our first meeting with Analog Motion, there was a lot of discussion as to whether using Zippa, instead of paper instructions, would be the right fit. Liability was the biggest concern. If something was unclear and the bike was assembled incorrectly, Analog Motion would be completely responsible. The layout had to infallible and exact.

The Only Editor That Could Handle It

Both companies agreed, the Zippa content editor was the solution. It was powerful enough to provide clear step by step flows, sub-steps, and predictable image placements. Content management would be reliable and intuitive enough to remove instructional liability.

The only modification required was a PDF export so the founders could print instructions if needed. Although adding the feature took a few days, both teams worked simultaneously and communicated via Slack. As Analog Motion finished their first pages of content, our team was printing and testing the exports. With the knowledge base ready to go, Analog Motion was able to focus on the remainder of their fulfillment process.

Welcome Card & QR Code

When the first batch of electric bikes were ready to be shipped, a welcome card was included in the box. This had the QR code, URL and a brief explanation about accessing the digital instructions. Analog Motion also included paper instructions (printed from Zippa) as a safety precaution.

Dropping Paper Instructions Altogether

After the first week of shipping, the data was examined and every single customer was using the digital instructions. Customers were raving about the assembly process and Analog Motion opted to stop including paper versions in the packaging altogether.

“To be honest I never saw a better assembly instruction. It was really easy to assemble the bike.”

Andreas K. (Dortmund, Germany)

It was clear there wasn’t any need. Not only had Analog Motion pleased their customers while offloading assembly, the Analog Motion founders were also able to improve the overall experience with each new shipment.

“We’ve been implementing loads of little tweaks and suggestions from our customers across the assembly instructions. Every day it gets stronger.”

Jack Chalkley — Co-founder of Analog Motion

With Zippa, Analog Motion has been able to replace paper instructions with a stellar knowledge base, cut shipping costs, decrease fulfillment time, and meet the needs of thousands of customers throughout the world.